Rote vs. Restricted [Plus a sample Trailblazered spell sheet]

Adventurer

The title pretty much asks the question. Rote spells are single target spell with a duration of 1 min/level or less. Restricted spells include spells with a duration of 10 minutes/level or longer.

Is a duration of Instantaneous shorter than 1 min/level? It would make Cure spells fit into Rote. Reasonable. But nightmare is also a single target Instantaneous duration spell that affects the target with fatigue for 24 hours and unable to regain arcane spells for 24 hours

My thought is that Instantaneous is meant to be rote.

Thoughts?

PS. What about single target spells shorter than 10 mins/level but longer than 1 min/level? Or duration of just 10 minutes (like remove fear) Rote or Restricted?

Adventurer

I'd like to create spell sheets to go along with my legal-sized character sheet for each spell list that marks each SRD spell with a place to mark off whether the spell was readied and some notation signifying Rote, Restricted, and Ritual.

DM judgement is good, but it makes creating a "universal" sheet for it a point of conflict.

A community's best sense would be nice. Whether bless is iconic enough (or magic missile for that matter) that it deserves Rote status despite it falling into Restricted, by the reading of the rules as written. Otherwise, I was going to be hard nosed and fit to the listed qualities.

I guess that could be another thread question, which spells are iconic spells and deserve to be Rote when the RAW says they are Restricted . . .

[Update]The latest version of the spell list inserts are posted in this thread.

Adventurer

I like the "blanket" rules for R/R/R and they will work in 99.9% of cases.

But it's actually expected that you will need to move them around during play.

For spells where you can't quite decide, you can have the first casting (slot) Rote, and second or subsequent castings become Restricted. That's a good middle ground to let the players know you'd like to see them diversify their tools a bit.

Whether bless is iconic enough that it deserves Rote status despite it falling into Restricted, by the reading of the rules as written. Otherwise, I was going to be hard nosed and fit to the listed qualities.

For the record, I am a hard ass on bless. It's good enough (functionally) to be Restricted. The only argument in favor of making it Rote is so that players aren't completely discouraged from readying it at low level. Thus, it's an excellent choice for the above tweak.

In my current campaign, I have been testing out a tweak suggested by my wizard player: He voluntarily drops the duration of Restricted spells so that they are Rote when cast.

Adventurer

For spells where you can't quite decide, you can have the first casting (slot) Rote, and second or subsequent castings become Restricted. That's a good middle ground to let the players know you'd like to see them diversify their tools a bit.

In the thread linked to by ValhallaGH, Wulf and Glassjaw noted that a list of SRD spells with Restricted/Rote/Ritual designations were forthcoming. I didn't find any posted anywhere so I was going out and building the lists for myself. Did such a SRD spell list with R/R/R designations get published that I missed?

What ought to go on a useful spell list that you would give to PCs to reference? I figured:

- Some notation signifying R/R/R
- A way to mark which spells are readied.
- Maybe a spot to note how many spells slots at each spell level.
- A spot to write down how many the PC can ready at each spell level.
- Each spell level's DC.​

DC, # readied, and spell slots are already on the main character sheet, but I believe having them here is valuable even if the redundancy could cause "character update confusion".

Would anyone find value in designating the spells with color as well as the symbols?

I guess one more guidelines for determining:

- If the effects of spell (i.e. single target now but multiple target later) qualifies as Rote at the earliest level the character can cast it then the spell is Rote always (unless DM judgement override)​

What about spells with duration of Concentration plus #rnds/level? It could be kept up for hours, potentially, but more often just a combat . . .